Roman Forum and the Palantine

Stretching out from the back of the Capitoline Hill, it is the most important archeological site in Rome. It has been inhabited since the Iron Age and it became the heart of the city at the end of the seventh century B.C. Its development can be traced along the Via Sacra with its basilicas, temples and triumphal arches that are witness to the history of republican Rome, except for a few exceptions from successive ages and renovations from the Christian era. After going atop the Palantine, in an area that, during the Renaissance, was occupied by the papal gardens of Paul III, the Farnese Gardens, the journey ends ideally at the foot of the colosseum.

THINGS TO KNOW: In the heart of the Forum, in front of the Rostri or podiums, in 44 B.C., a golden aedicule was built for the burial of Julius Caesar in which was first placed his bloody toga and then the body of the deceased. This is the where Marc Anthony delivered his famous eulogy, which was immortalized centuries later by William Shakespeare.